International Toleration

Pietro Maffettone teaches at the Department of Political Science, University of Napoli Federico II, Italy.

"Liberal toleration seems increasingly under threat – both within nations and between them. Under these circumstances, work such as that of Pietro Maffetone becomes increasingly important. Maffetone provides a compelling and elegant defense of a particular vision of liberal tolerance; his account of toleration is capable of guiding liberal states seeking to identify those foreign political practices they are duty-bound to respect – as well as those they are rightly permitted to reject. The book draws on the history of liberal thought about toleration, while demonstrating the ways in which that history must be reinterpreted to make sense of modern international controversy. The book is rigorous, clear, and very likely right; it deserves to be taken seriously by political philosophers and political practitioners alike." — Michael Blake "Since the publication of Rawls’s book, Political Liberalism, two questions have been central to the development of liberal political philosophy: how can a liberal political order be justified, given the pluralism that characterizes liberal societies; and how ought a liberal society to regard other societies that are not liberal? In this book, Pietro Maffettone makes an important contribution to answering the second question. Building on a novel interpretation of Rawls’s idea of toleration of nonliberal, but "decent" societies, Maffettone develops a methodologically sophisticated and plausible account of what we should expect of the people of nonliberal societies if they are to warrant our toleration. Further, he demonstrates that toleration is not just a matter of "putting up" with those you regards as inferior, but a positive affirmation of equal respect." — Allen Buchanan

• Introduction: The Appeal of International Toleration 1. On Toleration: Concept and Conceptions 2. Political Liberalism and the Partition Model 3. A Liberal Theory of International Toleration: Meaning and Desiderata 4. The Liberal Theory of International Toleration: A Candidate 5. Reconstructing the Liberal Theory of International Toleration. Conclusion: The Difficulty of International Toleration